Monday, August 18, 2025

Photo: Knight Hall at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyo. (Kamila Kudelska / Wyoming Public Media) Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho students will have a crack at a new scholarship at the University of Wyoming (UW). Wyoming Public Radio’s Hannah Habermann has more. UW is creating the “Wind River Promise Fund”. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars will be available to tribal members to cover undergrad tuition costs and mandatory fees for full-time students. The idea’s been going back and forth between tribal members, state legislators, and the university for years.  UW trustee Paul Ulrich says the move is something to celebrate. “ I think this is a long time coming and I am absolutely thrilled to death that this motion has been made today.” An additional $2 million will be managed and invested like an endowment. Students must be enrolled tribal members to qualify. They also need to be Wyoming residents and graduate from a Wyoming high school. Nanwalek in 2015. (Courtesy Chugachmiut) Many clean energy initiatives across the country have been hit hard with federal funding freezes and abrupt cuts in recent months, but two villages in Alaska are considering a project that would harness the energy of ocean waves, potentially for the first time in the U.S. The Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA has more. Waves gently hit the shores of Kachemak Bay as ravens croak above on a cloudy night in July. The small village of Port Graham is nested here, at the southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula. The village may soon convert wave energy into electricity. Dannielle Malchoff is the first chief of Port Graham. “I have a lot of hope that this is going to be something great for our community.” Chugachmiut is a consortium that serves Native tribes including Port Graham and its neighbour, Nanwalek. The consortium announced it had partnered with an Australia-based company Carnegie Clean Energy in May to explore an ocean wave energy project for both villages. Carnegie has several wave energy projects across the world, including Australia and Spain, but this would be the company’s first commercial installment in the U.S, according to Louise Richardson, Carnegie’s commercial analyst. “One thing at Carnegie that we hope our technology will be able to service in the future is remote communities and isolated communities that might not have access to other forms of renewable energy options.” Port Graham and Nanwalek have no roads connecting them to the rest of the state. Energy costs there are high because the villages are at the edge of the grid and diesel for a back-up generator comes on a barge. The electrical lines running from Homer are several decades old, don’t have enough capacity, and are unreliable. Malchoff says Port Graham loses power several times a month in winter and once every few months in summer. “We have to use satellite phones if our power is out, which isn’t very convenient when you’re trying to relay and talk to doctors in the ER and you’re dealing with a patient.” Malchoff says more reliable electricity from wave energy could solve some of these issues and, ideally, the village can sell any extra energy back to the grid and use that revenue on healthcare and education. The plan is to place a wave energy device offshore from Port Graham. The device will be submerged and tethered to the seabed, moving with the waves and converting power from that motion into electricity. Permitting, testing, and installing might take close to five years. The Gathering of Nations announced in a social media post over the weekend that next year’s powwow will be the last dance. KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio has more. The Gathering of Nations Powwow has been an Albuquerque, N.M. annual tradition beginning in 1983, drawing thousands of performers and spectators from across Turtle Island over the last four decades. On the event’s website, organizers cited “several factors beyond [their] control” making “long-term planning and coordination challenging”, without specifically saying why, But that’s the reason behind them closing this chapter nearly eight months from now. The 43rd Gathering of Nations will happen next April at the Tingley Coliseum at the New Mexico State Fairgrounds.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.